My best friend looked down at her milkshake glass as if it was the most interesting object in the entire world.
“Cass? You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?” I tried to follow her movement, force her to look at me. “Earth to Cass?” I waved my hand in front of her.
“Sorry,” she said when she noticed my waving. “I’m just… I don’t understand.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Is there something you haven’t told me, Dev?”
Her question took me aback a little. “What do you mean?” I didn’t really understand why me keeping something from her—not that I was, I told her everything—would have anything to do with the horror show that occurred in my kitchen this morning.
Cass stared straight into my eyes. “I mean, about yourself?” The gaze in her eyes became darker. “Some dark part of yourself you’ve been hiding from me?”
“I’ve never hidden anything from you. Never.” Frowning, I took a sip of my milkshake, feeling a little awkward at my best friend’s questions. “You know that, Cass. The darkest part of me I can think about are the nightmares, and I’ve told you all about those.”
“Hmm.” Cassie grabbed the pink-and-white straw and stirred it around in her glass, lost in thought.
“Why are you acting this weird? I tell you about this crazy-scary stuff that happened to me, and all you can talk about is me hiding stuff from you?” A hint of anger slipped into my voice.
“And how about your mother?” Cass asked, ignoring my question. “Any secrets about her that you haven’t shared with me?”
“No.” I was becoming irritated at her annoying questions.
“She hasn’t exhibited any strange behavior? No reason for you to think that something out of the ordinary is going on with her?”
“You mean other than this morning?” I snapped. “No. The only person who’s acting out of the ordinary is you. What’s going on?”
Cass sighed and threw her hands in the air. “Okay, I’m sorry. It’s just that… I’ve known you forever, and I’ve never once thought that you were… Well, one of us.”
My eyeballs practically fell out of their sockets. “One of ‘us’? Who is this mysterious ‘us’? And for the record, I thought there was an ‘us’ already, namely you and me.” I pointed at her and then at myself.
Cass bit her lips. “I really shouldn’t be the one to tell you this. But if your mother is not like us, then…” She looked at me apologetically. “Then it must’ve been your father.”
“Why are you bringing my father into this?” I hated how hurt I sounded, my voice raising a few pitches whenever I talked about him.
My father had disappeared ten years ago. He up and left one day, with just the clothes on his back. He didn’t even drive away; just went for a walk and never came back. My mother thought he was kidnapped at first, or murdered, but I knew differently.
Before he left, he’d bent down to the height of eight-year-old me and looked me straight in the eyes.
“I have to go.” His voice hadn’t wavered once while he spoke the words. “I have to leave in order to protect you. Know that I will always love you, my Devilina.” He’d used his nickname for me—Devilina rather than Devina, a nickname that had originated from my years as an unruly toddler, a ‘devil’. “This is not your fault.” Then he’d kissed me on my forehead and walked out of the door.
When I told Mom what happened, she practically tore down half the house in a rage-filled outburst. It was one thing to think the person you were in love with, the person you wanted to spend your entire life with, the father of your child, had been kidnapped or held somewhere against his will. But to find out he left her voluntarily, abandoned the child he supposedly loved, was another thing completely, and my mother couldn’t cope with that. It took years before she started to resemble her old self.
And my father’s comment he had to leave to protect me—what the heck did that even mean? Protect me from what? I’d struggled with that one for years until I figured he had probably just said it as an excuse to get away from the life he’d built, the mundane nine-to-five job, living in the suburbs and the responsibility of dealing with a child. I had never heard from him, not in ten years. Maybe he had started a new life somewhere, maybe he had a new wife and children he actually cared about.
But Cass knew how much this had traumatized me, and she never brought it up, never. So, why now?
“Since your father isn’t around anymore to tell you,” Cassie continued, ignoring my question, “I guess I’ll have to do it.”
She reached for my hands, holding them in hers.
“Tell me what?” I asked reluctantly.
Cassie took a deep breath. “The ‘Academy for the Wicked’ is a place for—”
“Cass,” I interrupted her mid-sentence, gesturing to her milkshake while my eyes grew wide, and my mouth dropped open.
The milkshake glass was hovering inches above the table, dangling in the air, and flying higher and higher with every passing second, like a helium balloon. Then, with a violent thug, the glass jerked to the left and smashed against the wall, shattering in a dozen pieces.
I jumped up, startled, barely believing what had just happened. Glasses didn’t fly. They couldn’t. What the hell was happening? Was this real, or was I still stuck in my nightmare? What if I had never left the red room to begin with?
I stared at Cass dumbfounded. “What did you—”
“Seriously?” Sarcasm dripped off her tone while she interrupted me, rolling her eyes.
She didn’t seem shocked or scared, not jumping out of her skin like I was. Why? Why wasn’t she scared?
